The present invention relates to a rescue holding clamp which automatically grasps a swimming victim""s wrist or forearm when a clamp is triggered by the victim touching or grabbing a tripper element, which causes off-centered hour glass shaped jaws to rotate in unison to make an orifice formed there between small enough to grasp the wrist or forearm of the victim.
In sea rescues, life preservers or other holding rings are dropped to a victim from a dock a boat or a helicopter. However, often the victim is exhausted, and cannot grasp the life preserver or ring.
To rescue precariously placed fire victims, various devices are used. Fire escapes and ladders can be used when the victim can be reached from the ground, but in high rise buildings only helicopter rescues from above are possible. These rescues normally include dropping a rope or cable with a ring to grab from a helicopter to the roof of a burning building.
Among related US patents include the following:
Of these, U.S. Pat. No. 4,694,931 of Sibertin-Blanc for an Automatic Tripping Rescue System includes a sleeve into which a victim inserts the hand and forearm. It includes a handle tripper which causes the sleeve to snugly engage and grip the forearm.
However, the Sibertin-Blanc ""931 device grips the forearm by an inflatable sleeve, which may take considerable time to inflate and from which a victim""s hand could slip out of.
Other non-rescue personal flotation devices which grab the forearm or wrist are shown in the Evans ""427, Caplan ""759 and Gonzalez ""033 patents. The Huttner ""507 sleeve is a flotation device wrapped around a swimmer""s ankles. The Ericson ""415 patent device describes an inflatable first aid splint and the Simpson ""563 device is a forearm cuff to attach to a tool, such as a broom, a canoe paddle or a shovel.
The Swager ""632 patent is cited for a mountain climber""s device containing a cam with teeth, where the serrations and eccentric off center cam motion contributes to a grasping action in general, although not particularly for a forearm sleeve.
The Cearly ""386, McGlinn ""530, Beckley ""074 and Crome ""731 rescue devices have body harnesses that automatically tighten around a victim and automatically cinch down.
The Lunden ""557 device is an ice rescue device that uses gears to advance toward a victim.
However, the aforementioned devices do not have mechanical reliability, and some have to rely upon air pressure and internal springs, which could malfunction. Therefore there is a need for simplicity in a device, which can reliably and quickly grasp a victim""s wrist or forearm in a rescue operation.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a rescue clamp which automatically grasps a victim""s forearm, even of the victim cannot manually grip an object.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a rescue clamp which can safely grasp and hold the wrist or forearm an exhausted swimming victim with minimal effort on the part of the victim.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a rescue clamp which can be easily dropped to a victim from a dock, boat or helicopter.
It is further an object of the present invention to provide a rescue clamp which can rescue precariously placed fire victims upon burning buildings.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a rescue clamp which automatically tightens around a victim""s wrist or forearm.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a rescue clamp which prevents a victim from losing grip while being lifted.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a floatable rescue clamp for use on waters which can be advanced toward a victim in choppy, turbulent seas.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a rescue clamp which can communicate voice instructions from a rescuer to a victim.
It is a yet another object of the present invention to improve over the disadvantages of the prior art.
In keeping with these objects and others which may become apparent, the present invention describes a rescue clamp to rescue precariously located victims, such as swimmers in bodies of water, i.e., seas, lakes, rivers, ponds, or swimming pools, also such as climbers in a deep ravine, persons on top of a burning building or persons who have fallen down a well or crevice.
The rescue clamp includes a clamp into which a victim inserts the hand and forearm. It includes a trigger which is activated by a spring loaded trigger initiated by contact with a victim""s hand, or which is a handle grabbed by the victim""s hand, to cause the clamp to snugly engage and grip the wrist or forearm of the victim.
For children or thin persons the clamp generally engages the wrist. For stockier, heavier persons, the clamp grasps the thicker forearm of the victim.
The clamp grips the wrist or forearm by off-centered hour glass shaped jaws, that rotate in unison to form an orifice therebetween, which is snug and small enough to grasp the wrist or forearm of the victim. The off-centered hour glass shaped jaws are eccentric in that they are not symmetrical about each respective top to bottom axis. The curvature tapers constantly, departing from a symmetrical pattern.
To facilitate rotation, there is an eccentric off-center cam motion of the jaws contributing to a grasping action in general.
The optional spring loaded clamp version includes a latch mechanism wherein the off-centered hour glass shaped jaws are indented peripherally with notched steps. The notch steps are urged in a spring loaded position where they are held in place by a tab or bar stop. The hour glass jaws are spring loaded by being wound about respective coiled torsion springs until the notched steps engage the tab or bar stop.
The jaws move either by pulling the handle, or preferably by the victim""s hand being in contact with a latch trigger, which upon contact, causes the notch steps to move away from the bar stops, resulting in rotation of each of the jaws in unison.
The jaws automatically tighten around a victim""s wrist or forearm and cinch down. The rescue holding clamp automatically grabs a swimming or other remotely positioned victim""s wrist or forearm, when the clamp is activated when the victim, such as a swimmer in a body of water or a climber in an inaccessible canyon, inserts the hand through an orifice created by movable clamps, and either touches a spring loaded trigger or alternatively grabs a grabber handle.
Upon either the spring loaded activation of the trigger or upon the grabbing of the handle by the victim, the off-centered hour glass shaped jaws rotate in unison to make the orifice smaller. As the orifice gets smaller, the jaws snugly grab around the wrist or forearm of the victim.
Therefore, if the victim is semi-conscious and loses his or her grip on the handle, the wrist or forearm clamp retains its grip upon the victim""s wrist or forearm, enabling the victim to be lifted.
If the victim is heavy in weight with thick forearms, the clamp closes as soon as the orifice between the pair of eccentric hour glass shaped jaws touches the forearm. In the spring loaded trigger version, the size of the orifice between the off-centered hour glass jaws automatically adjusts to the size of the victim""s forearm. With the optional trigger handle embodiment, for thinner persons, the victim has to pull the handle closer, so that by time that the orifice is small enough to touch the victim, it touches and grabs the wrist of the victim.
Moreover, for water rescue versions, the clamp is made of flotation type materials, such as rubber or foam.
In water rescues, the rescue clamp is dropped from a water""s edge, from a dock, from a boat or from a helicopter over water and is directionally powered remotely by a pair of paddle wheels with step motors to reach the victim. While five inch diameter paddle wheels may be powered by, for example, a 7.2 volt motor mild waters, larger eight inch diameter wheels are the preferred embodiment for choppy waters in turbulent seas. In that case, the rescue clamp uses a more powerful power supply, such as for example, a 12 volt motor with 12 volt lead cell batteries, so that the rescue clamp can reach speeds which are multiples of the swimming speed of a human rescue lifeguard. For example, while ocean-going lifeguards reach speeds of three or four miles per hour, the rescue clamp of the present invention can go at least that fast, preferably multiples of these speed, such as fifteen miles per hour in speed, even on the ocean waves.
For ice rescues, the wheels may be studded wheels.
The rescue clamp is also useful for fire rescues on top of burning buildings, or in non-aqueous deep rescues (wells, ravines, etc.), in which situations, no wheels or flotation base are needed. In these situations, the rescue clamp can optionally have one or two handles. These rescue clamps can be dropped manually by a rescuer, or from a helicopter.
Furthermore, an optional one way or two way communications loud speaker may be provided so that the lifeguard or other rescuer can talk to the victim, and a siren or flashing light may be provided for locating the rescue clamp in areas of poor visibility, such as in fog or nighttime conditions.